June 23, 2012

"with straight people who want to do the same," says David Blankenhorn (formerly a conspicuous opponent of gay marriage).

For example, once we accept gay marriage, might we also agree that marrying before having children is a vital cultural value that all of us should do more to embrace? Can we agree that, for all lovers who want their love to last, marriage is preferable to cohabitation? Can we discuss whether both gays and straight people should think twice before denying children born through artificial reproductive technology the right to know and be known by their biological parents?

I don't know what that last question has to do with the rest of it. Putting that aside, he's talking about generic conservative values relating to marriage. I suppose it's easy to "agree" that these things are better than the alternative. It's harder to give up all that sex outside of marriage.

[Savage] does not believe in promiscuity; indeed, his attacks on the anonymous-sex, gay-bathhouse culture were once taken as proof of a secret conservative agenda. And he does not believe that monogamy is wrong for all couples or even for most couples. Rather, he says that a more realistic sexual ethic would prize honesty, a little flexibility and, when necessary, forgiveness over absolute monogamy. And he believes nostalgically, like any good conservative, that we might look to the past for some clues.

“The mistake that straight people made,” Savage told me, “was imposing the monogamous expectation on men. Men were never expected to be monogamous. Men had concubines, mistresses and access to prostitutes, until everybody decided marriage had to be egalitar­ian and fairsey.” In the feminist revolution, rather than extending to women “the same latitude and license and pressure-release valve that men had always enjoyed,” we extended to men the confines women had always endured. “And it’s been a disaster for marriage.”

See? Straight people make the "mistake" of not structuring sexual norms around the male. That's the message from one man who's only interested in sex with men. What about women? Well, let them "enjoy" the sexuality that man take to naturally. Liberation, baby. The man who has no desire whatsoever to have sex with bodies like yours says so.

I can't imagine that people like Savage will tone it down because Blankenhorn is now offering to form a coalition. Wouldn't he — as I do — write off Blankenhorn as a guy who's trying to re-leverage his importance? Who needs him?

It was not that long ago that gay people who wanted to fight for gay marriage were harshly criticized by other gay rights folk (and lefties more generally) for wrecking the gay liberation agenda. Everyone was supposed to work together to break down conservative sexual norms, and anyone who found themselves to be homosexual was supposed to accept that meant he or she was supposed to be part of a sexual rebellion against the squares. It was heresy to say what you wanted was a relationship as close to an old-fashioned heterosexual marriage.

Which is to my senses the unsettling ever-present flaw of male homosexuality: that you need to adapt to me to have a relationship; I never, every need do anything different to have a relationship with you.

YOU must accept ME and take me seriously; but I am still free to be as sarcastic and flippant and dismissive about YOU as I please.

This is the way the question should have framed from the beginning. It's about marriage, not some ephemeral right. This focuses the discussion on individuals, not movements. It may not change any laws but it might change some hearts, on both sides, for the better.

Dan Savage and his ilk are not going to fit in to this framework, and that's good.

Which is to my senses the unsettling ever-present flaw of male homosexuality: that you need to adapt to me to have a relationship; I never, every need do anything different to have a relationship with you.

YOU must accept ME and take me seriously; but I am still free to be as sarcastic and flippant and dismissive about YOU as I please.

Yeah, edutcher, because once you've married and bred, pretty girls don't mean a thing anymore. And should one find you attractive, and come on to you, why a pretty girl coming on to you is meaningless. Eh?

Don't lie to us or to yourself. There's no need is there? Where there is no temptation there can be no virtue in resisting.

Ann wrote"It was not that long ago that gay people who wanted to fight for gay marriage were harshly criticized by other gay rights folk (and lefties more generally) for wrecking the gay liberation agenda. Everyone was supposed to work together to break down conservative sexual norms, and anyone who found themselves to be homosexual was supposed to accept that meant he or she was supposed to be part of a sexual rebellion against the squares. It was heresy to say what you wanted was a relationship as close to an old-fashioned heterosexual marriage."Oh, bullshit Ann. You just can not help but shovel rightwing red meat to your Hillbillies can you?

You can try to ascribe some boutique opinion held by some radical small subset as being the norm but in reality 99% of gays and lesbians go to work in the morning, pay their taxes and have moderate views.

Ann stop pulling shit out of you fat ass so you can appease your more homophobic fan base.

Yeah, edutcher, because once you've married and bred, pretty girls don't mean a thing anymore. And should one find you attractive, and come on to you, why a pretty girl coming on to you is meaningless. Eh?

Yeah, those vows and breaking the heart of a woman you love mean nothing when confronted with a nice piece of ass, right?

As I say, it's just an excuse.

Kchiker said...

As when some of them give Reagan's portrait the finger.

I found those pics a bit shocking at first. Upon further consideration, these people DO have pretty understandable grievances against Reagan.

Such as?

Funny, I don't remember anything "gay", pro or con, about the Reagan years.

I think this Blankenhorn fellow has a better chance of winning hearts than Savage. I can't say that he has convinced me on the merits of gay marriage, but at least he is coming at it from the standpoint of strengthening the institution, rather than like Savage, who seems interested in undermining it.

"It won't work. More derangement, more children (remember them?) trying to grow up outside a normal family structure.”

The 50’s aren’t coming back, no matter what laws you pass. It should be obvious that you’re losing this battle when even your activists are switching sides.

I can understand the conservative urge to legislate in order to return to a “simpler time”. However, the virtues of liberty and small government do not automatically mutate when the priority is conservative.

Everyone was supposed to work together to break down conservative sexual norms, and anyone who found themselves to be homosexual was supposed to accept that meant he or she was supposed to be part of a sexual rebellion against the squares.

And anyone who acknowledges that, now, is labeled a homophobe, and/or misogynist and/or whatever other useless, meaningless, garbage they want to throw out there.

Nichevo, Yeah, edutcher, because once you've married and bred, pretty girls don't mean a thing anymore. And should one find you attractive, and come on to you, why a pretty girl coming on to you is meaningless. Eh?

Man, that's an immature - and dumb - thing to say. You've got no self-control at all, do you?

I've had two guys, this week, frame my celibacy (five years now) as a death sentence. Meanwhile, I've seen a family man discover his wife was cheating on him (he was supporting her parents, too) and a single friend's betrayal, multiple times in the last few months, as he's been on the hunt for a wife.

Meanwhile, the biggest backers of gay marriage are women - who initiate 70% of divorces.

Come on. This is insanity. Starting with the straight males who've just rolled over. To get laid. Because they've got no self-control.

You can try to ascribe some boutique opinion held by some radical small subset as being the norm but in reality 99% of gays and lesbians go to work in the morning, pay their taxes and have moderate views. Ann stop pulling shit out of you fat ass so you can appease your more homophobic fan base.

Another dumb (and entirely cliche'd) thing to say. Notice how he skipped the subject and went to paying taxes and the like? Just stupid. Not as stupid as accusing every challenger as homophobic, but pretty low on the scale of intellect.

Almost as low as the percentage of Log Cabin-like gays to their general population. Most gays are lying. Like Jay, hoping we'll keep buying what they say instead of using our own eyes. They're really a subversive cult of perverts, waiting for someone to say "no," but nobody has the guts to do so yet.

Crack wrote "Most gays are lying...hoping we'll keep buying what they say instead of using our own eyes. They're really a subversive cult of perverts, waiting for someone to say "no," but nobody has the guts to do so yet."

Ann, what a motley crew you have collected as you fanboys. You must be starving for attention.

"So Reagan's people said, this, but not Reagan?Who said it, and when?”

Larry Speakes made jokes about it. Pat Buchanan had plenty to say. C Everett Koop has spoken about his struggle to put forth information...fought by other Reagan advisers who believed that (Koop’s words here) ‘They are only getting what they justly deserve’.

I find Reagan’s April 2, 1987 statement on AIDS pretty disgusting and oblivious.

"How that information is used must be up to schools and parents, not government. But let's be honest with ourselves, AIDS information can not be what some call 'value neutral.' After all, when it comes to preventing AIDS, don't medicine and morality teach the same lessons.”

"ps. The worst joke about AIDS was that the gay people spreading it didn't want to do anything about their behavior. So it kept spreading.”

Worldwide, 90% of those infected with AIDS are heterosexual.

It’s bizarre that the same people who oppose even putting out information re: HIV transmission and how to prevent it...strain to wag their fingers at gay people. Perhaps instead they should look within.

It’s bizarre that the same people who oppose even putting out information re: HIV transmission and how to prevent it...strain to wag their fingers at gay people. Perhaps instead they should look within.

You are time traveling, here.We were talking about the early days, during the Reagan administration. The days of the spreading of HIV and AIDs through the gay bath houses of San Fransisco and throughout the gay community. The days when the men spreading the disease didn't want to be told the promiscuity was killing them.

There were lots of stories like this from 1982.Ali Gertz died 10 years after having, in 1982, unprotected sex in a one-night stand with a man who was probably gay and already suffering from AIDS-like symptoms. She was 16 that night.

That's what 1982 was like. That's where teaching a different morality might have helped both the gay community and, as I said, women.

Sex isn’t required for transmission. When the transmission is sexual...promiscuity is not required for transmission. You can feel as holier-than-thou as you’d like, but it is no less repulsive.

Of course sex and promiscuity is not required for transmission. At the time, however, the scourge was being fueled by unprotected sex and promiscuity.That fact had to be taught. That fact had to be accepted, because unless the unprotected sex and promiscuity stopped, the spread of AIDS was not going to stop.

People believe the revisionist BS put out by the Dems/Hollywood (Bang The Drum Slowly, Angels In America, etc.) for political gain. The fact is that Ronald Reagan over-ruled his scientific advisors and committed $Billions to Aids research from the get go. The standard position in the scientific community at the time was that such a knee-jerk reaction shows a general ignorance of science and a distribution of scarce resources. The money, they argued, should be allocated toward the majors causes of death--heart disease cancer, etc.--in proportion to their ranking. Plus, no retrovirus had ever been "cured" or prevented. The advances of the last decade or so in treatment, were all started under Reagan.

AIDS was not the judgement of God, nor was it the fault of Reagan....I vaguely remember that gay activists protested the closing of bathhouses. I think that such activism caused more deaths than Reagan's silence on the subject.....Water seeks its own level. Pehaps there's a sector of the gay population that takes more comfort in durable relationships than in promiscuity. That sector can get married, and the other sector can go to the bars. I think it's wrong, however, to want it both ways and promulgate promiscuity as a kind of domestic virtue that truly enlightened people should strive for.

I remember it more than vaguely. It was an grimly eye-opening experience to see so many supposedly right-thinking progressive people angrily oppose the most basic public health measures, while calling those they disagreed with bigots.

So if you polled all gays and lesbians back in the 1980s they were all against the closing of the bath houses? Also, that was twenty five years ago, right? Also, all gays and lesbians today are responsible for the decisions and actions of a small minority of gays and lesbians a quarter of a century ago? Right?

Here is the big question-and you really don't get why you Althouse Hillbillies are clearly deranged bigots? Ann's comment in this thread should make her sons embarassed.

I remember it more than vaguely. It was an grimly eye-opening experience to see so many supposedly right-thinking progressive people angrily oppose the most basic public health measures, while calling those they disagreed with bigots.

So if you polled all gays and lesbians back in the 1980s they were all against the closing of the bath houses?

Yes - we were "oppressing" them. There might have been a few holdouts in The Mattachine Society, but nobody listened to them (too old fashioned and reasonable). Just like today - and you - gays, generally, weren't listening to anybody. Dying, stupidly, was much preferred.

Also, that was twenty five years ago, right?

Yes, and we're now millions of deaths later, and the (disco) beat goes on.

Also, all gays and lesbians today are responsible for the decisions and actions of a small minority of gays and lesbians a quarter of a century ago? Right?

Boy, you love that "small minority" qualifier, don't you? What a maroon! Was there a brainwashing course you got that from?

Here is the big question-and you really don't get why you Althouse Hillbillies are clearly deranged bigots?

Nope - we understand why we don't agree with your deranged comments - not the same thing. A bigot is ignorant of what he/she doesn't like, but we know gays pretty-fucking-well. And we don't dislike them, we just want them to come to their senses and, for instance, stop trying to always fuck things up. And fuck things. Message to gays:

You're human beings - your identity is not in your pants.

Also, to lesbians, the butch thing is NOT happening if you dislike men,...

Ann's comment in this thread should make her sons embarassed.

Yeah, that whole "we've lived through history" thing is enough to make anybody crawl into a ball of shame,...

"In this case, it would’ve been nice if the President would’ve been an actual leader and helped shape their thoughts instead of merely reflecting what many teenagers think after one too many episodes of Glee."

-Bristol Palin

Regardless of what you think of her, she is 100% ON THE MONEY on this topic.

It's a shame that Madison has gone from a nice All-American town and been corrupted by Zionist Hollywood propaganda.